Impacts of using cartoons as an instructional tool on English communicative skills of young learners at a Vietnamese primary school

Abstract

This study examined the impact of the use of cartoons on the speaking and listening skills of students in a primary school in a rural area in Vietnam and their attitudes towards the use of cartoons as a learning tool in their English classes. The study employed an experimental research design to collect data. Participants included 70 fifth-graders divided into two groups, the control group and the experiment group. The control group was taught regular English lessons. The experiment group learned similar lessons but cartoons were added to the English lesson to practice speaking and listening skills for six weeks. Before and after the experiment, the speaking and listening skills of the two groups were measured by a pretest and a posttest. In addition, the students in the experiment group were surveyed using a questionnaire to examine their attitudes towards watching cartoons for learning purposes. The findings show the English speaking and listening skills of the students in the experimental group improved more significantly than those of the students in the control group. Besides, the students in the experiment group expressed positive attitudes towards watching cartoons in English classes. The findings had implications for English language teachers at primary schools in Vietnam and in other non-dominant English speaking countries to include visual materials in their English lessons to enhance young learners’ English proficiency.